Guinea Pig 3: He Never Dies

GUINEA PIG 3: Shudder!, The Man who doesn't die, HE NEVER DIES (1986). Starring a bunch of nobodies. 

A “scientist” or some Francis B. Gross ala Faces of Death type dude starving for the circus peanuts he was most likely paid with, warns us that this is a true story. His name is Rick Steinberger and looks like one of those cheap 1-800-lawyers or a Better Call Saul type huckster. There’s a really annoying punk sounding song that plays while a rundown telemarketing office goes about its daily grind. This one already is miles ahead above in comedy but we shall see if it gets as unbearable as the first few films in the series.

I found this more entertaining than Better Call Dull.

It’s really odd to me that when Chas had these for sale, they were unsubbed, so you’d just make up your own story line! This one was described as the "Mermaid in a Manhole" entry, but that's one of the later episodes. He Never Dies is almost "Dundler Mifflin Tokyo style" as office workers chit chat and the shitty-o camera looms in way too close. The fake scientist makes another appearance as a Japanese voice loudly speaks over his and they both talk about the main character’s “human relationship between employee and company”, then the narrator gleefully anticipates how insane the main character will get. He does a puppet show with his feet, I mean who hasn’t been there? So he locks himself in a room for 4 days and begins to slice open his wrist. Why though, I mean he’s surrounded by TV, comics, tons of entertainment—I don’t get why he's so bummed out but it’s all part of the let's shock the audience in a masturbatory way.

Dag your breath smells like limburger!

If you discovered that you were immortal, why would you fuck yourself up by cutting into your flesh all day— it’s so grunge! If I found out I could live forever, you can bet I'd do everything I could to effect legislation toward gun control or disable The "Diaper Klown Dictatorship" for the sake of sanity. Or maybe I would go back in time Terminator "Outer Limits" style and abort all the babies that are now neo nazis clogging up Washington, making society more intolerable than it should be. How boring or pointless would it be to just hack away at your own limbs, too much work for me that's for sure.

The music that plays during the office fantasy scenarios sound like Trio that "da da da" band or Atari casiotones. 

This dude is about as likeable as Pauly Shore crossbred with Kid Rock!

Some dude the main character is pals with comes over and tries to scare him wearing an Elvis mask. It’s all still a lot funnier than the 1st two movies but none of it makes sense and it’s on an 8 level on the excruciatingly boring scale. Can't wait till part 4, oh wait, yes I can!
WHY AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF, I MUST BE SOME KIND OF TWISTED SADIST!

Somebody order a Hand sandwich, I'm the Dave Coulier of Guinea Pig!

Guinea Pig 2: Flowers of Flesh and Blood

Guinea Pig 2: Flowers of Flesh and Blood, Starring and directed by Hideshi Hino (1985).

Everything that we now know about Charlie Sheen from his drug abuse, porn star addiction, severe mental problems and conspiracy theories, most people would in this day and age side with Chas Balun. According to Snopes, in the 60's, Ed Sanders a guy in the hippie punk band The Fugs interviewed someone from the Manson Family about a headless victim in a secret sex tape that no one was able to track down but it was labeled "snuff". That was the first case of a hardcore scene that ends in death and of course tons of movies came out after about the subject, starting with Michael and Roberta Findlay's controversial, laughable and dull as shit flick Snuff.

Now that this bullshit is on Blu-ray, I'll die of embarrassement all over again!

Sheen pushed the panic button over at Chris Gore’s party, where he put on a crazy video compilation, it offended the dopey actor and he alerted the feds. Gore already had it out for Chas, bashing him in Film Threat, as a scumbag who ripped off the directors that he claimed to admire. We've covered this before but Chas not only loved these rare films, which were all censored in the U.S. at the time, but he went out of his way to champion them as more artistic and brilliant during the time when they were regularly trashed. He took it to the underground to get the message out there before the internet existed.

I saw this film back in the 90’s when it seemed as if it could’ve been a genuine snuff flick, Skunkape had a copy and we giggled and made fun of the dopey looking back alley rapist Samurai (who reminded us of our T.V. Production teacher Mr. Bolton). This teacher had the most lethal, paint peeling, shit-smelling breath that it was a form of torture just to be too close to those rotten choppers.

everybodies doin' it from Col. Sanders, Alice Cooper to John Waters.

Balun also sold the making of special, which showed all the latex effects and fake gore. If you do a brief amount of research, you’ll find truckloads of YT teen film critics making snarky comments or dissecting the entire film series 1-6 that were produced usually in front of their overstocked shelves of horror DVDs and posters. I’ve successfully neglected to review all of the short films, even though I was fascinated by what each of the creative staff of Deep Red thought of Chas getting unfairly busted, because it put them all in serious jeopardy at least for a short while.

A mysterious underground snuff tape showing up in your mailbox could never happen again. In the future of 2017 of course if you really wanted to, you could easily seek out beheadings, snuff or Serbian Film reality bullshit if you choose that depraved route, it’s all up to your own discretion and moral compass or whatever sick shit gets you off. Or you could not even try all that hard and accidentally watch every Human Centipede film on various streaming devices. Why would you though, as Max Renn (James Woods) character in Videodrome struggled with, why do it for real? It’s so much easier and safer to fake it. You know things are really fucked up when that kind of shit is run of the mill. 

I'm still haunted by James Woods trying to explain this flick to Peter Griffin.

Hideshi Hino, a talented comic book artist took this idea or philosophy and constructed his own version of what a genuine snuff film might look like. There’s an interview with him from Vice.com that said the production team behind the first movie approached him about a minimal project, which was the basis for Flower of Flesh and Blood. Hino actually put on the makeup, donned the silly looking helmet for the Samurai role and got really down and dirty. He didn’t receive that much hostility from the feds, at least as much as CB did, which is fucked up considering he created this piece of shit and Deep Red just sold a bootleg of it.

I used to see ads for Hideshi’s comic Panorama of Hell and Hellbaby in the Fantaco catalog, there’s even a cool maggot eaten action figure which came out (that's pretty fucking expensive and hard to find). Hideshi's artistic talents are more provocative and interesting than this film here, which like the first one is just basic torture porn—aka the bullshit Eli Roth thinks is valid performance art.
It begins with amateurish subway footage and an after dark chloroform situation happens. It does have a scary voyeuristic shot on video quality.

I hope this toy is under my tree this year.

A rubber glove wearing ghoul in lipstick and white face make-up (Hideshi), sharpens up some loud surgical instruments and starts carving away like a grandma on Thanksgiving. That’s kind of how it begins, he kills a chicken and blabbity blabs about how poetic her blood and bones cracking are. It’s all done in a slow masturbatory way and it’s no fun at all, super creepy, nihilistic, icky and deranged. I mean if there was a story or purpose other than to get the jollies of some freako going, then maybe I could file it under something in the vein of Grand Guignole Japanese style, but it’s insanely boring and just foul. It ends with him severing her head, popping out her eyeballs and he sings a hellish lullaby. The End.

This short film has certain elements in common with Nekromantik. There’s a the jar of organs, maggots slithering into the camera and all that jazz but it’s basically too boring for its own good. A totally unpleasant yawn fest, it's basically gorenography but I guess it was influential on creating one of the dumbest sub genres: torture porn. Until next time, I’ll save you a straight jacket for the loony bin of Japanese snuff depravity because I plan on reviewing all of these whether they all suck or not.

NEVER TO BE SEEN!

THE PATENTED GUINEA PIG UP CHUCK CUP!

Female Demon: Ohyaku (1968)

Female Demon: Ohyaku

Directed by Yoshihiro Ishikawa. Starring: Junko Miyazono

Reviewed By Michael Hauss

This film is a blood-soaked masterpiece of womanly revenge. The story of although not a virtuous or innocent woman, but a woman nonetheless who is pushed into this undesirable life because of the scar on her back, which is not merely a scar, but, a sense of pain, shame, and hate all manifested in that bodily mutilation. Oh, but, that scar does not detract a thing from the beauty of Ohyaku (Junko Miyazono), because she is a woman of exquisite grace, with skin so soft and inviting, that it’s as if the devil himself had granted her this divinely, but devilishly intoxicating form.

But, an easy life was never in the cards for Ohyaku, since the moment her mother decided to throw herself and young Ohyaku, off a bridge, into a raging river below. The fall from the bridge kills Ohyaku’s mother, but the young girl survives with a large scar upon her back and a multitude of ones inside her. Ohyaku, grows into a beautiful woman and becomes an attraction at a carnival, where she is a tightrope walker of amazing agility. One-night things get set in motion to forever alter the life of Ohyaku, which pushes her to the edge, from whence she can never return. In the crowd that night are two men, who will forever change the course of her life. First there is Shinkuro (Kunio Murai), who is in the crowd scouting her for a job, after meeting and falling in love with her, decides momentarily not to involve her in his plans of robbing the mint. The other man in the crowd Master Sengoku (Koji Nanbara), who will bestow pain, hurt and send Ohyaku, to the point of breaking, only to have her push back with a determined, almost unworldly determination for vengeance.

Come on Mr. Softee, I don't have all day!

Master Sengoku, the most important bureaucrat at the mint, has rapist designs on Ohyaku, whom he assumes is an easy mark, because of her being part of the carnival, and due to his social standing. Problem is Ohyaku, will have none of his groping, rapist, self-entitlement, escaping from him with the help of Shinkuro. When called on the carpet by the carnival owner, who tells Ohyaku, that he could have his head chopped off because of her insubordination towards Sengoku, demands her to return to visit Sengoku again that night. Ohyaku, tells the carnival owner, that, “I’ll no longer be a man’s toy, even if it kills me.” Ohyaku, goes on to say, “I’d like to kill all men who abuse women with power and money,” to which the old man says, “The child of a whore, should behave like a whore.”

Shinkuro, tracks down the drunken and hurt Ohyaku that night and they tell their stories of pain and anguish, the scar proving that she is the child of a whore and inside that scar her mother cries, because they share the same blood. Shinkuro, has also lived in a world of pain and rejection, including his lack of opportunities because of his being unable to bribe his way into a position and his mother killing herself for his inheritance. Shinkuro tells Ohyaku, “You see no one is without a scar on their body or heart. But, if you let it fester in your mind, you’ll never move forward." The pair falls in love and Shinkuro’s plan to rob the mint, is aided by an inside man at the mint named Hyoe Sakaki, a childhood friend of Shinkuro’s.

while you're up there, would you mind hanging the laundry.

Minokichi of Otowa (Tomisaburo Wakayama), a local boss, arrives and tries to dissuade Shinkuro from robbing the well-guarded mint, telling him, how twenty years ago, when he and his men attempted to rob the mint, how he lost everything including wife, kid, all his crew and his arm, telling Shinkuro you shouldn’t cross a dangerous bridge. But undeterred Shinkuro continues on with plans for the robbery, when is pulled off, successfully. But it seems the inside man Hyoe Sakaki, was only doing it to benefit the careers of Master Sengoku and himself, to bribe themselves into more important positions, so with a force of men,  they attempt to retrieve the gold from the robbers, which had been well hidden beforehand. After killing all the other robbers, they wound Shinkuro, and spare the life of Ohyaku. Taken back to the mint, after the bound Ohyaku is raped by Sengoku, Shinturo, then placed in a guillotine with a rope tied to Ohyaku’s hair while heat is introduced on the platform where she stands, her hair being the only thing holding the blade back from cutting Shinkuro’s head off. Sengoku, tells Shinkuro, that if he wants to live, and wishes to end Ohyaku's suffering, then tell them where the gold is hidden. Slowly blood pours down Ohyaku’s face from the weight of the blade, pulling her hair out, causing Shinkuro to tell them where he'd hidden the gold.  A moment after Shinkuro tells them where the gold is… the rope is cut and the blade comes down chopping off Shinkuro’s head, and the torrents of blood from his body starts cascades down onto the floor.

Ohyaku, is given something worse than death, she’s sent to the notorious Sado island prison, to work in the gold mine. Once she's introduced into the men only prison, she is quickly accosted by a few of the men, until a man named Bunzo, steps forth to defend her, telling her, Buznzo (Koji Sekiyama), the iron-barbarian will take care of you now. Bunzo, even attempts to rape her, down the line, driven mad with her beauty, until she splits his skull with a rock, telling him that when and if she decides to give it to him, it will be her decision. The Jailer’s wife, notices the lovely Ohyaku and decides that she could sell her for a nice bit of money, but first wants to tattoo her exquisite skin. Ohyaku, decides she wants a large demon tattooed to her back, to cover her scar. The jailer’s wife, just like the men who encounter Ohyaku, wants her sexually and violates her after using a needle to paralyze her, which she plans on doing when Hyoe Sakaki comes to visit, because he has a rapist eye on Ohyaku also. But Ohyaku decides to play the jailer and his wife against each other by telling the jailer she want to run off with him and then telling the wife her husband wants to kill her and vice versa, this deception ending in bloodshed and eventually death for both. When all is said and done, Ohyaku sails off with Bunzo to pay a visit to the mint and Master Sengoku.

While women in Japanese films had been relegated to wives, mothers, daughter, prostitutes and victims for many years, this film while not the first to give a little female violent liberation, it is the one of the films along with the Red Peony series, you can point to that got the Pinky Violence genre kickstarted. Two more films would follow in this series, Quick-Draw Okatsu (1969) and Okatsu the Fugitive (1969), but were stand-alone films, that were not continuations of the previous films, with Ohyaku, even receiving a name change to Okatsu. The director of this film Yoshihiro Ishikawa, also directed the excellent Bakeneko: A Vengeful Spirit in 1968, and The Ghost of Otama Pond (1960), for Shintoho, where he was a writer, director and apprentice to the legendary Nobuo Nakagawa, on the legendary J-Horror films; Kaidan Kasane-ga-fuchi (1957), Black Cat Mansion (1958), and the definitive version of The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959). The exotic beauty Junko Miyazono, appeared in a host of films. besides the Ohyaku/Okatsu flicks, including Samurai Wolf (1966) Eleven Samurai (1967) and the first film in the Toei Delinquent Girl Boss series; Tokyo Bad Girls (1970). The legendry Tomisaburô Wakayama plays Minokichi of Otowa, but, is best known as Ogami Itto, in the Lone Wolf and Cub series of films. Wakayama was the brother of Shintaro Katsu, most famously known as the blind swordsman in the long running series of film and television shows based on the Zatoichi character.

A film of at times deep misogyny, that never attempts to hide this hate throughout the first three quarters of the movie, but, allows the Ohyaku character a chance to extract some revenge against not only the men in her life who wronged her, but also the bureaucracy that kept the social classes repressed and held those in lower classes in total disregard. Produced by Toei and released in 1968. Released by Synapse films on DVD with a beautiful black and white, English sub-titled print, audio commentary by Japanese film expert Chris D, trailers for all three films, and other goodies. 

The End of The Wicked (1999)

The End of The Wicked (1999)
Directed by: Teco Benson
Written by: Teco Benson (screenplay), Helen Ukpabio (story)
Review by: "Machine Gun" Kristin 

I discovered "End Of The Wicked" through a user made list of movies on the website, letterboxd.com. The list is titled: Atrocities, Odditites, Trash, Trippy, Religious, Tinfoil Hat, WTF, The Worst in Film & Video and boy, is it ever. haha. After sifting through over a thousand films in the list, I found some hand painted posters produced in Ghana. I recently researched these strange film posters, which are displayed and preserved in a nice space in Chicago called the Deadly Prey Gallery. There, you can look at the many different types of movie posters, all pretty much the same style, painted in oils onto hand sewn flour bags. The poster interpretations of American films (mostly action and horror) are just as strange as you may have anticipated if you're familiar with other bizarre foreign posters from countries such as Thailand or Poland. The Ghana posters are in wide, gruesome brush strokes and make some movies look way more interesting than they actually are haha. I couldn't help but be reminded of the "The Mutilator" drawing from the art classroom scene in "Ghost World".

"Oh. I thought maybe this was supposed to be your father."

The thin plotline of "End Of The Wicked" consists of a group of Nigerian shape-shifting Beelzebub worshippers with what looks like hamburger meat plastered onto their faces. Their Lord is a white face make up covered man with a hairy bloody chin and Fat Albert's voice. He commands them to retrieve enough blood to fill a lake in 24 hours, although this goal is never achieved. The dialogue is either difficult to understand through bad audio and thick accents, which ends up being really unintentionally funny. In one scene, where a group of children are being initiated into the Satanic cult, a girl is told to "blow up all electronics in your home, drink bleach, glasses and then cause fever and failure to all of the children in your home" 

 

Beelzebub's Glamour Shot

The sets look to be decorated from those terrible large shops that say "antiques", where everything is brand new, dark pink, fake period piece style chairs, and particle board entertainment systems. Bleecchhh. Or better yet, they hired the set decorator from one of those strange religious shows that sometimes pop up on broadcast TV, with the giant desks and potted ferns in the background. I'd imagine this movie is a cross between "Black Devil Doll From Hell" (which I still haven't seen yet) and "Mystics In Bali" for the absurd special effects and bizarre, super awkward perverse scenes. In "Bali", the floating head (with organs intact), eats a baby right out of the womb, whereas in "Wicked", we're assaulted with the visual of main character Chris' Satan-worshipping mother (aka Lady Destroyer) raping his wife with a giant magic penis. Fun! Even better, we're somehow treated to not one, but two scenes involving bloody crotches! Yay! I feel like I should be running down the "drive-in totals" like Joe Bob Briggs there are so many wacky things in this gawd-awful movie. In one scene (brought to life in a GIF I made below), the evil children summon a plate of inedible looking pasta on the back of some poor guy while he's trying to sleep. After they devour it with their bare hands, the man wakes up in major back pain. So gross. Later, this same man is subjected to his eyes literally popping out of his head in a dream and he wakes up blind. I'm not even 100% sure what he did that was horrible to deserve this, but he ends his life by stabbing himself to death. He definitely made somebody in this movie mad. 

"I Wanna RAWK!"

Meanwhile, our main man Chris is (unbeknownst to him) still constantly being tortured by his witch mother throughout this movie. Until he's finally transformed into a goat and his throat is slaughtered. They appear to have actually sawed a poor goat's throat to achieve this scene and it is gruesome and horrible to watch. Speaking of real life horrors, this movie was concocted by Helen Ukpabio. She appears in this film as a pastor who I guess is supposed to save everyone from evil, but that doesn't seem to happen. This film was produced by Ukpabio's company called Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries and it's basically Christian propaganda. She's a wealthy evangelist that apparently through her teachings has influenced many to abandon and sometimes actually murder their children believing that they are in fact witches in disguise. There is a documentary on the subject called Dispatches Saving Africa's Witch Children on YouTube. There's a barrage of very negative press about her career and her bizarre teachings. She was actually banned from entering Britain in 2014 and she has sued the British Humanist Association (BHA) for defamation for basically twisting her words around. BHA's reply: 

“The fact that she is threatening to launch a legal claim for half a billion pounds over an alleged distinction between being accused of exorcising "Satan" or "Vampires" tells you all you need to know about Ms Ukpabio.”

Completely crazy! 

Watch "End Of The Wicked" (in two parts, first part linked here) HERE!

Check out my website HERE!

The Laughing Dead

The Laughing Dead (1989)
music by,  written by , directed by S. P. Somtow (Somtow Sucharitkul)

Review by Herbert Strock

Erok/ Crankenstein here, just chipping in my 2 cents about this Aztec-ian clusterfuck that I watched along with the chat room lunatics of Creepy Kofy Movie time, led by the enigmatic Webberley Rattenkraft aka The Fact Rat. We both scratched our noggins repeatedly in wonder of how gory and nonsensical it all was. Look at that cover too, it looks like a rejected Nightbreed creature in a Cosby sweater! I was even gonna bring back the 70's SNL graphic for Point Counter/ Point Debate segment, even though as mentioned before we were both dumb struck and befuddled by The Laughing Dead. Then along comes Herb with his "That's my opinion, maybe yours differs" patented statement. Well he's right about that, mine does but I gotta respect anyone who sticks up for this mind explosion, so on with the review and thanks again Herbert!

The basic premise is Father Ezekial  'Zeke'  O' Sullivan Tim Sullivan), a priest with a scandalous past involving a love affair with a nun, heads a community college 'archaeology tour' to Todos Santos in Mexico to see Mayan ruins and visit  'the laughing dead'  festival.  Among those coming along on the trip are Clarisse (Krista Keim) and Wilbur (Larry Kagen), a married new age couple, the persnickety Mr. Frost ( Gregory Frost), the annoying Mr. Dozois (Raymond Ridenhour), and the runaway teenager Laurie (Premika Eaton, Somtow's sis).  They also pick up O' Sullivan's ex nun, ex lover Marie Therease / Tessie Smith (Wendy Webb) and a foul mouthed young boy named Ivan (Patrick Roskowick).

During a conversation with his old flame, in which the priest admits that he has lost his faith due to strange nightmares, he comes to find out that the boy is his offspring from the long ago tryst. Along the way they encounter a wrapped and tied bloody corpse of a young girl, and two strange Mayan priests.

you want it when?

Arriving to their destination, the tourists explore the town and the local population.  In an effort to get acquainted with his son, Father O' Sullivan takes the boy about town, but then he is lured away by a woman under the guise of helping exorcise a possessed girl. The supposedly 'possessed' girl rips open her shirt, and then her heart.  She proceeds to rip out Father O' Sullivan's heart, and then swaps his for hers.  Father O'Sullivan is now possessed by the 'Death God'.  Father O' Sullivan and his fellow travelers become caught in a plot involving the mysterious Dr. Um-tzek (director S. P. Somtow),  sacrificial killings including the sacrifice of one's own son, portals to other dimensions, zombie basketball and giant monster battles in the Kaiju tradition.     

This organ is lazy, I'll manually squeeze you back to life

S.P. Somtow (Somtow Sucharitkul) wrote, directed, acted in, and performed the music score for this film.  He is not only a filmmaker , but also, a musical composer, who has composed 5 symphonies and a ballet.  In addition he is a writer who has written many novels including the excellent Moon Dance, and the splatter punk classic Vampire Junction, and scripts for the animated TV series Dinosaucers, C.O.P.S., and Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers. Aside from the aforementioned Somtow, this film is notable for being filled with various writer's of the sci fi / horror genre.  Tim Sullivan,  like Somtow has been both a filmmaker and a novelist.  He wrote several great micro budget films such as Eyes Of The Werewolf (1999), Grave Vengeance a.k.a. Hunting Season (2000), V- world Matrix (1999), and wrote and directed the excellent Vampire Femmes (1999).  He also wrote novels including Lords Of Creations and Destiny's End.  Gregory Frost who played Mr. Frost is a novelist whose titles include Tain and The Pure Cold Light. The other writer's in the cast include Edward Bryant (the novel Phoenix Without Ashes),  Arthur Bryan Cover ( the novel Autumn Angels),  Tim Powers (the novels Last Call and Declare),  William F. Wu (the novel Masterplay), and Brynne Chandler- Stephens who wrote episodes of animated tv shows such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Gargoyles, and He Man: Masters Of The Universe.  Also other cast members of note include: Forrest J. Ackerman, Len Wein (creator of X-man's Wolverine), and Filmmaker Wyatt Weed ( Twilight Hunters a.k.a. Shadowland and Guardian Of The Realm) appear as zombies. The special effects were handled by John Carl Buechler and Magic Media Industries Inc. 

The mutant boy from Phenomena gets festive.

The film itself is an interesting and zany mixture of gore, humor, and mythology.  The gore effects were well executed by Mr. Buechler and his company, which include a beheading, heart ripping, a pregnant woman's abdomen sliced open, a fist is driven through a woman's head, and a man's arm torn off.  The gore is somewhat cartoonish fitting the almost comic book feel of the film.  An example of this would be in the aforementioned scene where a character's arm is torn asunder,  the limb is then forced down the man's throat, and we see the fingers of his hand wriggling beneath the skin of his throat.  The humor of the film is also present in this scene, as well,  with the killer cackling gleefully, while shoving the severed arm in a cartoonish fashion down the victim's gullet.  Humor is also expressed in some of the interactions of the characters, such as the 'new age' couple, who bicker after talking about inner peace, good will, etc.  Mythology plays a big part throughout, particularly Mayan mythology, with references to  quetzalcoatl (who makes a surprise appearance), ancient mayan ruins, rituals,  and human sacrifice to appease the gods.

Weird Science 2: The Wrath of Chet!

There is some nice atmospheric lighting, especially in the scene where Ivan,  the priest's son is playing basketball waiting for his father to show up.   The area where the basketball hoop hangs is etched with both light and shadow.  The cavernous crypt / pyramid near the conclusion of the film is filled with chiaroscuro lighting and fog, giving it a great ambience.   

The idea of letting beliefs get in the way of having good relationships with others is very much a theme throughout the picture.  Feeling guilty and ashamed, as well as rigid social expectations are at the heart of why Father O' Sullivan and Mary Therese / Tessie Smith went their seperate ways.   Also the 'new age' couple are more caught up with there, some would say, 'out there' beliefs, that they don't seem to be aware of the issues between each other.  It seems that Somtow was saying, "Don't allow rigid belief and adhereing to the status quo to get in the way of having a fulfilling and meaningful relationship with others."  This also pertains to the other theme of not running from your problems and take responsibilty for your life.  Father O' Sullivan and Mary Therese / Tessie come to realize that they have to face their past in order to continue on.  The 'new age' couple Clarisse and Wilbur also realize that they need to face certain things in order to have a harmonious existence.  Even though I think The Laughing Dead is a very good film, I realize it isn't everyone's cup of tea (as with all movies, I guess).
That's my opinion, yours may differ.  

                             

John Carpenter style basketball.

Guinea Pig (1985)

Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment (1985, dir. Satoru Ogura)

This "Guinea Pig" series reboot is a great idea!

Review by Goat Scrote

     Yes, this is the first one in the series that got Chas Balun in all that hot water with the FBI! 

     Although there are several repulsive scenes, “Guinea Pig” doesn’t even come close to living up to its reputation as an extreme shock classic. The entire thing is only 43 minutes long and there is no story to spend time on, yet it’s halfway through before actual blood flows. Since this movie seems to have no purpose for existing other than to showcase blood and guts, that means there is a whole lot of purposeless violent filler occupying screen time. With no context for the violence it just seems like a meaningless exercise in misogynistic torture fantasy. If that sounds like your thing, you may dig it. My personal reaction to "Guinea Pig" was boredom and distaste (not a good combination), except during the brutal finale which features artfully disturbing imagery and an outstandingly horrifying gore effect which is a must-watch for gorehounds and practical SFX nerds.

     Three men torture a woman, and she dies. There it is, the complete plot, in every detail. The abusers are anonymous and the victim never says anything. No one in the film is individualized or made into an actual character. There’s no explanation except that the project is claimed to be a series of experiments exploring the limits of suffering. Each “experiment” opens with a title card hinting at what kind of punishment they will inflict this time. This film is genuinely nothing but torture porn (and I use the term without malice), although they actually leave a lot of the worst of it out of view even during the gruesome and explicit final scene. They sacrifice quantity of gore for quality, which is usually the right trade-off.

     The movie presents itself as something which was obtained illicitly and redistributed, in a “Blair Witch” style marketing maneuver. Most of the time the perpetrators faces aren’t shown, which further lends to the feeling that we’re watching something we’re not supposed to be seeing. I suspect it was these facts combined with the plotless pseudo-porno presentation which confused certain drug-addled celebrities into mistaking “Guinea Pig” for a real snuff film.

Part 2: Flower of Flesh and blood was the tape that freaked Charlie Sheen out enough to alert the FBI. Here's what Dennis Daniel said about the embarrassing event after he lent out the tape. Well, when I finished with it, I sent it to my pal Chris Gore at FILM THREAT. He ended up lending it to a friend who watched it with Charlie Sheen, of all people!  Sheen thought the shit was REAL!!! He contacted a friend of his in the FBI and before you know it, I got a call from an FBI Agent saying that it was a federal offense to send snuff films through the mail! We’re talking 20 years in prison!!!!  I had remembered that Chas told me there was a tape called THE MAKING OF GUINEA PIG, so the FBI said I had to give him the contact info for the person who sent me the tape and they needed to send that “MAKING OF” tape as well. So, I had to call Chas and tell him all this. Needless to say, he was not pleased. I actually called him on his birthday and he was having a fucking grand old time till I called him with the info. Remember, Chas was a California hippie dude of epic proportions…the fact that I gave “the man” info about him was not too cool…but I had no choice. He was my only hope to prove it was fake. It all worked out in the end but it really sucked at the time.

     It begins with a woman handcuffed to a chair and several men dressed in black beating her. They rub salt in her eyes. They club her with a bag full of coins while one dude chills in the background casually enjoying a soda. Some time later, they throw her on the ground and kick her while verbally abusing her. Next they torture her with pliers pinching and twisting her skin. The most absurd torture arrives when they spin her around a whole lot on an office chair. After way too much time lingering on that, they force Jack Daniels down her gullet, and spin her around some more until she pukes.

     The second most absurd "experiment" is when they torture her with headphones roped to her head, playing something which sounds like a perfectly ordinary Merzbow recording. This goes on until she is a drooling wreck. Around 22 minutes into the runtime it starts to get gory as they pull out her fingernails. She is tied up and asleep when they start pouring boiling oil on her arm with a cringe-inducing sizzling sound. That’s one seriously fucked up alarm clock.

     Next up is the maggot torture. They pour maggots on the burns and sprinkle a few on her face just for the hell of it. She seems to be unconscious through it all. Maggots are pretty fucking gross, and the thought of them eating the dead flesh on her arm is unsettling. The entire maggot scene is about getting under our skin with psychological creepy crawlies.

     For their next amazing trick, the torturers throw raw meat and real animal guts on the woman. The guys, mostly off-camera, giggle and breath heavily like masturbating morons. She is unconscious, and the gut-throwing goes on and on for what feels like a really long time. Finally she wakes up and screams. Again, it’s pretty gross to have guts all over you, but mainly I am bored at this point in the movie. If you've cooked chicken or turkey in your kitchen, you've handled things just as gross as this. Like the maggots, it's something a quick shower can take care of..

     Things get drastic near the end. They move on to surgical incisions and smashing her hand with a sledgehammer. It does look pretty realistic. For the finale, they chain her head down and shove a long needled into her eye socket sideways. The eye socket floods with blood and the eye is skewered until it pops right out. Fulci and Bunuel would probably approve. It closes with what appears to be her corpse, dangling inside a net in the woods.

     After it was over I felt all the emotional involvement of having watched a practical f/x demo reel. It was very hard for me to connect with this movie, since I couldn't see any purpose beyond serial-killer stroke material or showing off their gore effects prowess. I would've liked it better as a five-minute short, and I don't think anything significant would be lost that way. I know that they were doing their very best to present something deeply disturbing, but other than a handful of short sequences, I had to fight to avoid letting my attention wander.

Recommendation: Only watch the ending, unless you are a huge fan of torture porn and fake snuff.